This book represents the findings of research on the formation of a civil bureaucracy, its development, and its growing sophistication in the Ottoman Empire through an examination of changes in the relationship of scholars with the dynasty and its enterprise of state formation during the early modern period.

In the tumultuous political and ideological environment of post-Mongol Anatolia, the Ottomans needed the services of scholars to develop a sophisticated administration and to augment their legitimacy. The early Ottomans had no indigenous scholars in their realm, because the Ottoman polity originated and developed in formerly Christian territories. For this, beginning in the first half of the fourteenth century, the Ottomans invited prominent scholars to visit their lands and encouraged them to stay. Simultaneously, they began to build madrasas in which these educated men could teach and train other scholars. As specialists of law, scholars provided the Ottomans with knowledge of statecraft and fulfilled essential governmental tasks. They served as viziers, bureaucrats, professors, judges, jurists, and in other capacities. During the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, scholars were in high demand throughout the Islamic world. A plethora of political units built on the ashes of the Mongol system wanted to acquire the services of scholars. Scholars were aware of this situation and did not feel obliged to remain loyal to any particular political group. For this reason, the Ottomans had difficulty retaining scholars in their service, and many insouciantly left Ottoman territories to receive the patronage of other rulers.

The conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 can be taken as a watershed moment for Ottoman power, ideology, and governance that is usually characterized as a transition from principality to empire. After the conquest, the Ottomans’ advantages over their competitors accumulated such that they incorporated into their territory several Muslim and non-Muslim political units in Anatolia and the Balkans, one after another. Parallel to this territorial expansion was the vigorous program of state formation and gradual development of a large civil-bureaucratic apparatus (in addition to military cadres) that would implement orders from the Ottoman central government. In addition, as the new rulers of the centuries-old imperial capital, Istanbul, the Ottomans began to fashion an imperial identity and articulate universalist claims.